


Morally, I'm Destitute

by kaijuvenom



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Humor, I Wrote This Like A Year Ago, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Season 3 Era, it was mandatory for the Jokes(TM) but it goes away I promise, so sorry for the background Isabella
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-18 23:40:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20321431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaijuvenom/pseuds/kaijuvenom
Summary: As it turns out, carbon copies of dead loved ones aren't always carbon copies. Sometimes, they turn out to be horrible people and you get your heart broken all over again. If you're lucky, someone will be there to help you pick up the pieces. And Edward Nygma finally gets a stroke of luck.





	Morally, I'm Destitute

**Author's Note:**

> yeah so i wrote this like a year and a half ago and never published it so I edited it tonight and changed a couple things and it's still bad but whatever. I still love it for some reason.  
Probably because the "I thought Isabella was your cat!" "She is not a cat!" joke is still hilarious to me. I crack myself up sometimes.

Ed was acting strangely. Or at least, stranger than usual. And he was talking again. Not that Oswald didn’t love hearing him talk, even if he’d never admit it, but he had been talking even more recently, and Oswald had started unintentionally tuning him out in favor of simply staring at his face as he spoke with a level of happiness and passion Oswald had never really experienced. At least not over something like the trajectory of blood splatters of several viciously stabbed bodies at a recent crime scene.

“-and my girlfriend, she-”

Oswald stopped what he was doing, which had been trying to focus on some financial paperwork, and stared at Ed. “You have a girlfriend?” He asked incredulously.

Ed glanced over. “Um. Yes, haven’t you heard me talking about her? You know, ‘I have to get home, Isabella will be waiting’?”

Oswald blinked, his confused expression only growing. How had he not known this? When had the love of his life gotten a girlfriend without Oswald noticing it? Oswald noticed _everything. _That was his _job, _for God’s sake. “I thought Isabella was your cat.” 

“She is not a cat!” Ed yelled, seemingly offended, although Oswald couldn’t imagine why. Isabella was clearly a boring person if Oswald had thought her a cat up until this point. 

“Sorry,” Oswald muttered, not feeling particularly sorry. 

“So anyway, Isabella, my girlfriend, she-”

Oswald tuned the rest out, occasionally nodding along as if he were listening whenever Ed paused in his speech. A strange feeling was bubbling inside him, a feeling he was all too familiar with, but had never experienced before towards Edward. He tried to ignore it,Ed was happy, and he should leave it at that. At least Oswald knew why Ed had been acting so odd lately; he had a girlfriend. 

Over the next few days, Oswald proceeded to avoid talking to Ed as much as possible, he convinced himself it was to focus on his work, not because it was physically painful for him to choke out words that expressed anything other than annoyance and mild discomfort regarding Ed’s relationship. 

“Oswald? Were you listening?” Ed asked suddenly.

“Yes, of course, Edward.” He had absolutely not been listening, he’d been staring at a piece of blank paper for twenty minutes with a vein throbbing in his temple.

“Can you repeat what I just said?” 

“Hmm…” Oswald decided to write something important so as to look busy, except he couldn’t think of anything to write, so he doodled a stick figure with a blonde updo getting shot in the head by a cartoon penguin. “Something, something, Isabelle did this, something or another.”

He glanced up when Ed remained silent. “Oh,” he realized. “Was that offensive?” 

Still, Ed was quiet. In fact, he barely said anything to Oswald for the rest of the day. Not that Oswald cared, he didn’t, not in the slightest, smallest bit, that would be absolutely preposterous and completely and utterly ridiculous. 

A few weeks later, Ed brought Isabella to the mansion. She was a nice woman, and Oswald could, unfortunately, still spot no flaws with her. He’d met her once before, at the library where she worked, to convince her to stay away from Ed, but that had backfired horribly. She was unequivocally perfect for him, sharing his love for the unusual and macabre, as well as an unfortunate liking for his riddles. Despite her kind smile and attractive curly and perfectly styled hair, Oswald was quite dedicated to hating her. 

Isabella was the complete opposite of Oswald in nearly every way possible, and that fact annoyed him to absolutely no end. After meeting her for the first time, Oswald found himself wondering, more and more frequently, what he would do differently if he were the one with Edward. These thoughts did nothing to keep the ache in Oswald’s heart away.

Ed began staying the night at Oswald’s mansion less and less, eventually moving in with Isabella, and they practically stopped seeing each other altogether aside from work, and Ed didn’t even speak to him unless it was absolutely necessary. Not that it mattered, or at least, Oswald tried to convince himself that it didn’t matter.

He wasn’t important to Ed the way that Oswald wanted him to be, and that was _fine, _everything was _fine_. He blocked out the rushes of happiness he felt when Ed would stay late at work just to keep Oswald company, and when he’d let Oswald borrow one of his inordinate amount of pens, because Ed didn’t feel that same rush. 

Oswald wasn’t the person that Ed should be with, and that was that. There was nothing else to say, Oswald was in love with him, and Edward was in love as well. Just not with him. 

Edward sighed suddenly, rubbing his eyes, forcing Oswald to come back to the present moment. Ed seemed very nearly to the point of throwing whatever he was currently working on out the window, or he would’ve been, if Oswald’s office had any windows. 

“Ed, why don’t you take a break?” Oswald asked quietly. The look of concern he was directing towards him normally would have been enough to convince Ed to take a break, but instead he just sighed again. 

“I can’t. I can’t go home until I’ve finished this, I can’t. Not when you’re depending on me to get this figured out before the GCPD shuts down this entire plan.”

“Edward, you won’t be of any use to me as Chief of Staff if you can’t stay awake, and if I’m depending on you, as you say, I believe I should be allowed to have some sort of a say in what happens.” Oswald pointed out, leaning on his cane as he stood up. “I can help you, if you want.”

“Whatever,” Ed responded, stifling a yawn with the back of his hand. 

Oswald frowned, stepping over to Ed and placing a hand on his shoulder gently. “I’m sure you want to get home to Isabelle—Isabella. Do you need some help?” he asked softly. 

“I don’t want your help, Oswald! And I don’t want to see Isabella! I—” it seemed to take him a second to realize what he’d said, and he took a deep breath.

“Ed. Did something happen with Isabella?” Oswald asked cautiously, worry creasing his face.

“No! No, nothing! I just- I don’t want- just- just go away!” Ed yelled, pushing Oswald away from him.

Oswald stumbled briefly before regaining his balance against his desk. 

Instantly, Ed seemed to regret what he’d done. He moved closer to Oswald, his face softening. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“No, I’m sure you did,” Oswald replied, his tone cold as he brushed past Ed and left the office, slamming the door behind him. 

Ed stared at the door for a few long seconds, biting his lip. He didn’t know what to do. His only friend—his best friend—had been slipping through his fingers for months, and he hadn’t noticed until he was too far away to get back. He’d been too busy chasing after the ghost of a past love to notice what he had in the present, _who _he had in the present. And if Edward knew anything from watching horror movies, he should’ve known that ghosts who looked like loved ones resurrected were secretly evil spirits who wanted to kill him. And maybe that was a bit extreme of a comparison, he was fairly certain Isabella wasn’t going to kill him, but she certainly wasn’t the person he’d expected her to be. 

Oswald's words rang in his ears, repeating themselves, rearranging, organizing themselves into the most malicious and hurtful way to say that particular sentence. Usually, when Oswald said things such laced with anger, Ed waved them away, simply because he tended to let his heart think more than his brain, so his reactions were a bit more extreme. But this time, Ed had deserved that anger. He’d lashed out first, and that only made him feel worse. Feeling hot tears that had absolutely no right to be there begin to fall down his face, Ed slid off his desk chair and onto the floor, curling his knees up to his chest and attempting to slow his sobs. Not that it mattered, of course. No one would notice him whether he was crying or not. No one would care if he just walked off the edge of the Earth. 

Not that walking off the edge of the Earth was possible. 

He and Oswald had been friends for so long, they’d been through so much together, and Ed felt like he’d just thrown it all away. Over the years, they’d had their differences, their arguments, but they always sorted things out. Maybe that was because they understood each other. They both understood what the other had gone though, what they were going through, and they’d always supported each other. Of course, lately Ed had been pulling away. He’d abandoned Oswald for Isabella, for that evil spirit with the face of the love of his life. Or at least, the girl he’d thought was the love of his life, at one point.

He finally stood, abandoning all attempts at work and self pity in favor of leaving the office in search of Oswald, who he found in the living room, nursing a bottle of bourbon. 

“Hey.”

“Edward,” Oswald nodded.

“I’m- I’m sorry for earlier. I’m just… stressed out. Not that that excuses what I did, I shouldn't have pushed you, I’m sorry and-“ Ed began, stumbling over his words.

“Let’s go up to the balcony,” Oswald responded, not reacting to any of Ed’s other words.

So there they were, sitting on the hard wood paneling of the balcony on the third floor, passing the bottle of bourbon between them, both getting increasingly drunker as the sky grew lighter, the sun rising slowly behind them.

Instead of attempting to answer the question of how he’d managed to get himself into this situation, Ed had gone on a rant questioning the logic of the cartoon of confession snacks that always played before a movie in the theater. “Why does the box of Raisinettes go to the confession stand to buy another box of Raisinettes?” he asked, taking a long drink from the nearly empty bottle before passing it back to Oswald. “Wouldn’t that be considered cannibalism?”

Oswald shook his head seriously, leaning forward. “He’s not going to eat them, he’s buying them for his Pepsi girlfriend. Duuuuh.”

“Why doesn’t the Pepsi just eat her boyfriend though? She’s eating his friends, or brothers? That relationship clearly isn’t going to work out.” 

“Good point. I was actually focusing on why the boyfriend Raisinette box is sentient, and the box he buys at the confession stand isn’t. I was thinking it was because the sentient snacks aren’t actually snacks,” Oswald said thoughtfully. 

“Oswald, are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Ed asked. “What if the sentient snacks are aliens trying to investigate Earth? They wouldn’t want to disguise themselves as humans, because they’ve seen _The Twilight Zone_ and know that every time aliens try to disguise themselves as humans, shit hits the fan.”

“If they’re so in-tune to the culture of Earth, why would they disguise themselves as _snacks _instead of, I don’t know, animals or something?” Oswald asked, proud of himself for thinking up that point and dropping the now-empty bottle next to them, letting it roll away and off the balcony, landing on the cement walkway with a loud crash. “If most people saw a box of sentient Raisinettes walking around, I don’t think they would take kindly to it.”

“They’ve probably seen how many animals get killed by humans. _And_ at the end of the video, the snacks jump into the confession stand and turn normal. Their faces and arms disappear. It’s a perfect disguise.” 

“What about when someone tries to buy and eat them?” Oswald questioned, waving his finger in front of Ed’s face.

Ed didn’t respond right away. “Damn, you got me there,” he finally said, biting his lip as he thought. “Oh well,” he finally said. “It was good in theory.”

Oswald shook his head. “You’re so smart, and yet you’re an idiot.” 

“I’m just… ahead of my time,” Ed argued. “Besides, you love my idiocy.” He rested his head on Oswald’s shoulder, which he likely wouldn’t have done if he was sober.

“I tolerate it,” Oswald responded, somehow managing to guard his emotions, even with Ed this close and far too much alcohol in his system.

“I don’t know what I did to deserve a man who _tolerates _me,” Ed murmured sarcastically.

That sentence hung in the air for far too long, and it took Oswald about as long to process it as it did for Ed sit up awkwardly and blink owlishly at him.

“Did you—” Oswald started

“I didn’t mean—”

“You just said—”

“What I meant to say was—”

And then Oswald was kissing him, and Ed didn’t pull away. In fact, he pulled Oswald closer, his eyes slipping shut as he made a contented sound. But it only took a few more seconds for the other shoe to drop, and when Oswald broke the kiss, Ed was already scrambling away, looking like a deer suddenly caught in the brightest headlights in existence, before he was gone, back inside the house, leaving Oswald alone on the balcony. 

It wasn’t until the next morning, roughly twenty-eight hours, that Ed worked up the courage to leave his old room in Oswald’s mansion, which he had holed himself up in immediately after realizing he’d just been kissed by Oswald—and he’d kissed back, and he didn’t regret it, and he would very much like to do it again. He was ignoring calls from Isabella, and left his constantly vibrating phone on his bed as he walked downstairs in the robe Oswald had let him borrow that night he’d almost died. He was almost done cooking breakfast by the time Oswald had come downstairs. 

There was silence for a few minutes as Ed pulled two plates out of the cupboard and piled some of the egg, bell pepper, and sausage scramble he’d made on each of the plates, handing one to Oswald. 

He sat next to Oswald at the table, before finally breaking the silence. “Did you know that the only reason lobsters die is because eventually they get too old and weak to molt out of their shell, and they end up growing too much and suffocate within their shells. It’s impossible for them to die of old age, and they don’t get sick easily. Their chromosomes don’t shorten.” 

Oswald blinked, trying to follow the sudden random conversation topic, before he replied slowly. “Why are they so expensive if they can live so long?”

“Capitalism. The bourgeoisie, I don’t know,” Ed shrugged. “But the point is—”

“Ed, are we really going to ignore yesterday?”

Ed didn’t immediately answer. He was pretty damn good at avoiding things. He’d managed to avoid getting evicted from his apartment for a full twenty-one months without paying rent or renewing his lease. But it was hard to tell when someone _wanted _something to be avoided and when they didn’t. Especially with Oswald. Oswald was hard to understand when it came to his feelings. Ed never knew if he liked him, if he wanted to talk, if he was _actually _mad or just mildly annoyed, or if he was just continuously grumpy and occasionally… slightly more or less grumpy than usual. At that moment, Ed realized he’d been quiet for far too long, and he cleared his throat, setting down his fork and looking at Oswald. If he could treat this professionally, like a business discussion, maybe it would be easier.

“I didn’t realize you wanted to talk about it,” he finally said.

“I do.”

“And… what did you want to say?”

“That… that I’d like to- to kiss you again. In fact, I’ve wanted to kiss you for a while, but I know you’re with Isabelle, and I know she makes you happy, so- I’m sorry, I’m sorry for kissing you, I shouldn’t have done that, but like I said, I—” Oswald’s constant need to explain away his perceived missteps and mistakes was distracting him from the fact that Ed’s face was suddenly much closer than it had been before, but he did realize when he couldn’t talk anymore, on account of the fact that Ed’s lips were pressed against his in a tender kiss.

Despite the calm and confident air Ed had put on as he’d kissed Oswald for the second time, not that he was planning on keeping a tally of that (he definitely was), Ed’s heart had practically stopped beating by the time he pulled away. Oswald was going to change his mind, or something, he was going to tell Edward to ignore everything that he’d just said, and Ed couldn’t handle that rejection, he would rather live in denial. 

_Yeah, it is the second-longest river in the world. You’ll have plenty of room_, Ed’s mind told him. 

_Shut up_, he told himself. _Also, it might be the longest river. Because apparently no one knows how to measure rivers. That’s a controversial thing- you’d better not bring that up to anyone, you don’t want to alienate-_

Oswald had said something, Ed realized belatedly, and he shut down the argument with himself in time to hear the words ‘I’m sorry, Ed’, and his heart sank. He didn’t know what had proceeded it, but it couldn’t have been anything good.

“But what about your girlfriend?”

Ed blinked in confusion. “What do you mean, what about her?”

“Well, if we’re going to be together, what- what are you going to tell her?” Oswald repeated himself patiently.

“I-” _See, this is what I get for arguing with you, _he thought to himself, pointedly glaring at his reflection in a mirror behind them. His reflection, surprisingly, didn’t respond. “What?”

“If we’re going to be together, which— you do want that, don’t you?”

“What? Yes, yes, absolutely, of course I- but-”

“Well then what are you going to tell Isabella?” Oswald asked again, trying to get Ed back on the appropriate conversation track. He wasn’t used to being the logical one of the two of them, and apparently Ed’s brain short circuited when he felt too many emotions. 

“I- uh, I don’t know- kill her I guess-” Ed responded vaguely. “Can I kiss you again?”

Oswald let out a breath of laughter, a fond smile forming on his face. “Of course you can.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Twitter: @kaijuvenom


End file.
